PeachBlossomGoddess

Geez Qianfan can be so mean, just plain mean! Yinzhang went into shock! ROFL!!!

Yups - I misquoted slightly - he allegedly burned books and buried scholars. I would totally be like See Ya Confucius too!!! It is actually considered wild history today bc it was only written about hundreds of years later by historian Sima Qian who wrote all kinds of other nasty things about the First Emperor. Nonetheless Confucianism was at a low point during his reign.

The first emperor of China Qin Shihuangdi banned Confucianism and burned the scholars in favour of Legalism. To massively oversimplify the core Confucianist belief is man is inherently good and only needs to be gently guided. The central core belief of Legalism is man is more inclined to be up to no good and rigid and strict application of the law is needed. After Qin fell, Legalism was largely abandoned. Confucianism was already being revived during Tang Dynasty but it gained serious traction during the Song Dynasty because of the adoption Imperial Exams which were based on Confucianist ethics. That is how successful nobody scholars like Ouyang Xu were able to advance in society by entering government service.

They can - ADOS is one but they usually get pretty low ratings. Douban is dominated by intellectual snobs they don’t rate fluffy shows highly. In any case it doesn’t matter if you enjoy them and score them higher that’s good enough.

There is nothing that hits censorship hot buttons in this - no revolution, distortion of history, time travel or BL. Dark stories can be problematic if the bad guys win. This directors last hit Goodbye My Princess was very dark and very tragic.

Yeah 6 people are going to die they got a lot of wood to chop….

It opened around 8.0 if I remember correctly but it’s 7.9 now. It’s not really a wuxia though.

Those are fairly good ratings for romances.

Chinese viewers love their wuxia and tend to give high scores for this genre. Even much lower budget ones like WOH and Ancient Detective got 8.4 and 7.8. I was expecting 7.5 and above for this in the beginning considering the popular IP, the bigger budget and the famous director. There are also not many votes yet so it could change quite a bit.

😂😂😂 Good old bones was kind of creepy. And yes I agree WXS was remembering. Now he and FYK and bros. Geez.
As for the unbearable intelligence of WR, forget about the lurking villain. How about just rolling off the cliff while asleep??? I am forced to think the director has it in for her.

Maybe I am just having an off night but Ep 1 is boring and the vibe is not at all the same as the trailer. There is no chemistry between the leads.

It is the opening rating, we will have to see how it does into the finale. The novel is very dark but very well liked for that reason, the series has an 8.4 score on Douban and is considered the novelist's best work. The drama has been whitewashed in many places. I think it is quite a fair score.

Douban 6.9.

1. WXS and BCF best talent seems to be to find themselves stuck somewhere - prison or at the bottom of a cliff.
2. No one owns up to their own destiny, ambition or true nature. LC was raped and traumatised by her father's death. BCF was tortured, manipulated and traumatised by his BFF's death. Eyes roll just so they can both remain inherently good people that were forced by fate.
3. And now even FYK the most heartless villain has daddy or foster daddy or whatever issues. Not to mention there are so many foster daddies its all one giant mess of fosterdaddyship. And they are all siblings by 2 degrees of separation so this drama is really one giant melodramatic and incestuous family squabble.
4. All of the heroes are all bravado and no brains. They are all out smarted by the chancellor who can't fight and couldn't kill an ant. And poor BCF he ends up being both evil and the dumbest shit of them all. They should have stuck with the novel at least he chose who he became and remained smart through it all.
At this point, I don't care anymore, I just want this to end. What a giant waste.

And we crash again into the incoherent, boring and worst of all maudlin:

True but to be fair WR is just not a well written character either. While she is not exactly annoying in the book, she is not in the least interesting either.

Ok, makes sense.

Its really interesting bc someone who knows the writer well and has discussed this novel in depth with him (I suspect he is his editor or a journalist) posted that when asked, he told the writer that SMZ and DFJ are his favorites also.

Well there is a ton of stuff but I think the big complaints are how much the drama has changed the novel and not for the better. Someone scolded the director and screenwriter saying that neither of them are as well known as directors or screenwriters than the novelist is as a novelist so why did they think they would be able to change the novel and make it better. And the rape scene is very controversial not just for its inclusion but also how it is presented in a different way (worst) from the novel. Someone even leaked the whole script but I didn't bother to even skim it bc its tons of pages. How all the characters have been changed. They are esp mad that BCF hasn't even gone dark yet and this way before the halfway point bc he is supposed to be already.

Different rules for different worlds. If you don't like that stuff then just give the genre a pass.